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- Title
"What we want in Elegance, we gain in Copiousness": Eighteenth-Century English and Its Empire of Tongues.
- Authors
DeWispelare, Daniel
- Abstract
The article explores the idea that the English language in the eighteenth century was imbued with a sense of copiousness, its large vocabulary allowing writers to convey specific meanings, an idea adapted from philosopher Desiderius Erasmus. It studies writings including the poem "The True-Born Englishman" by Daniel Defoe, Samuel Johnson's "Dictionary," "The Grand Repository of the English Language" by Thomas Spence, and "Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres" by Hugh Blair.
- Subjects
ENGLISH language -- Foreign words &; phrases; 18TH century English literature; ENGLISH language dictionaries; DEFOE, Daniel, ca. 1661-1731; JOHNSON, Samuel, 1709-1784; SPENCE, Thomas, 1750-1814; TRUE-Born Englishman, The (Poem); LECTURES on Rhetoric &; Belles Lettres (Book); ENGLISH literature; LITERARY criticism
- Publication
Eighteenth Century: Theory & Interpretation, 2016, Vol 57, Issue 1, p121
- ISSN
0193-5380
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1353/ecy.2016.0005